


move with the season

by bugmadoo



Series: Robron Week 2017 [3]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: February 2016, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Second Person, Pre-reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10035482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugmadoo/pseuds/bugmadoo
Summary: Robert closes a chapter and takes off his wedding ring. (Set pre-reunion February 2016)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Robron Week 2017 Day 3: You're The Boss  
> Title from [Move With The Season by Temples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwZVQm1ENqY)
> 
> I'm still a little bitter/sad that we never got a moment of Robert just closing that chapter of his life and I actually did a rewatch just to find out when exactly Robert stopped wearing his ring but it was impossible he wore it for forever?? Anyway let's just pretend this is what happened haha. Enjoy!

Keeper’s Cottage is warm and smells close to home when you walk through the door.

The house is dark and quiet which isn’t surprising considering the late hour. You were half expecting Vic and Adam to still be up but ever since you moved into their box room you’ve learned that the both of them like to have an early night surprisingly often. You’re glad they’re nowhere in sight.

You hang your keyring on a hook by the door and breathe out deeply. Your body feels weary and uncomfortable after the day you had and all you really want right now is to crawl into bed and sleep. It’s futile to wish for it, you know, but maybe tonight is the night you finally get a full night’s sleep. (You doubt it.)

You hang up your jacket on a hanger and in the dark you make your way upstairs and into your room, closing the door behind you.

The only source of light is the surprisingly bright moon, silver spilling from to window to the floor. You drop your keys on the chair next to the door and walk over. Lifting your hand, you are about to draw the curtains close, but with the movement of your hand, your eyes catch the reflection of the light on the silver band around your finger.

You pause, frozen in place, and somehow you can’t stop looking at it. It’s not even something new, no in the contrary, it’s a sight you have seen a thousand times before, but that somehow that doesn’t matter. You stare so hard the image starts blurring in front of your eyes. Shaking your head, you blink slowly and focus your attention back to what your original plan was and close the curtains.

The room is wrapped in darkness, but it’s not the scary kind that makes your adrenaline and heart rate spike, no, it’s the kind of darkness that promises you to keep your secrets safe.

The springs of the bed creak when you sit down on it, and you take a deep breath. When you close your eyes, all you can see is Aaron. Aaron who walked away from you in tears once again because of his monster of a father, Aaron who doesn’t believe he can get any justice for what happened to him, Aaron who you want to help _so badly_ that you don’t know what to do.

Aaron who agreed to give the two of you a proper chance when the time comes.

The memory makes breathing a little easier, but you feel guilty about it when, right now, all you can do is try your best to do right by him. Finally do right by him.

You reach over to your bedside table and turn on the lamp on there. You look down at your hands in your lap and once again your wedding ring catches your attention. Spreading your fingers, you stare at it, the silver band sitting where it always has been for the last year. It’s been there through your marriage crumbling spectacularly, through getting shot, through finding out about Andy, and through finding out about Aaron.

For a moment you just remember – remember the weight of Aaron when you dragged him to your car at the scrapyard, remember the immediate change in his demeanor when you mentioned his dad, remember his despair when he finally let out a secret he’d been keeping for far too long. Ever since then you’ve known with a scary certainty that Aaron was worth this. He’s worth so much that you know you finally need to drop the façade you like to keep around people, need to stop trying to fit into places you think you belong in, need to change for the better. Become someone that would be worthy of Aaron.

But then why is it that ring still on your finger?

The question echoes around in your head, bouncing off the insides of your skull like a tennis ball.

You think maybe it’s not the ring itself but rather the idea behind it. Maybe it’s because you were still chasing the ghost of your father’s approval, the need to please him even though he’s long dead, ever present despite your best efforts of ignoring it. Everybody is telling you that he’d understood but they don’t know what happened the first time you kissed a boy and you don’t plan on ever telling them.

Or maybe you simply bit off more than you could chew like you know you have a habit of doing. The amount of times you find you’re in over your head is ridiculous frankly, and you always end up wondering how on earth you land yourself in a Situation with a capital s. Then again Aaron was one of those situations once and, well, you never expected it to turn out the way it did. Or rather, the way it does now.

Your fingers are already pulling off the ring, but the thought of Aaron makes you stop for a moment. You wonder if he ever thought about it, if he ever wondered why you are still running around with a ring on your finger. You hope he doesn’t think that your intentions are less sincere than they actually are because of it. Now that you think about it, it has to look strange, telling Aaron you still want to be with him while wearing a ring that once tied you to a woman you have no more interest in. All the times you told yourself that Chrissie was the one flash before your eyes like a slideshow.

Suddenly, it’s easy to pull it off. It’s the easiest thing in the world.

The ring is pinched between your index finger and your thumb and you just look at it. Despite what happened ever since you put it on, there are no visible marks on it. One would think that something being so close to Robert Sugden was bound to get damaged sooner rather than later. But no, the ring looks almost new as far as you can tell.

Now that it’s off, you have no idea what to do with it. What is it the accepted custom for former wedding rings? You think about pawning it for a moment and you smirk at the idea because it would actually mean you get money out of the Whites once more. But then again maybe you should keep it – not because it has any kind of sentimental value but maybe it could be something like a reminder to himself, a memorial so that you won’t ever repeat the same mistake, a reminder that you’re going to be better and try harder.

You decide to adjourn the decision until after you’ve had some sleep and put the ring on top of the dresser standing next to the bed. Your thumb immediately touches the space the ring just abandoned and you run it back and forth.

Your bare finger feels like the last straw tying you to your past is gone, feels like giving up, but for the first time in your life, giving up doesn’t feel like failure.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! [me on tumblr](https://softrobertsugden.tumblr.com)


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